Hybrid learning

A call for the extension of hybrid learning urges that it become not just a quick fix or a boon for the bottom line, but an educational mode that reenvisions quality teaching and learning for the 21st century. Hybrid learning could be the new century's educational game changer. Combining online with face-to-face instruction, hybrid learning promises a best-of-both-worlds solution to higher education's acute problems of student retention, success, and engagement. Yet, in the absence of adequate faculty care and institutional support, hybrid learning can aggravate the very problems it is meant to address. This work is an in-depth exploration of a new learning mode that could radically change higher education, incorporating emerging trends in technology and multimedia use, including online gaming, social networking, and other Web 2.0 applications, to create engaging and dynamic learning environments. Laying out fundamental challenges facing higher education today, this book shows how hybrid instruction can be designed and implemented to deliver excellent educational value in flexible modes and at moderate costs well-suited to the circumstances of many students and institutions. The book lays out the characteristic profiles of students who are most likely to benefit from and perform well in a hybrid learning environment, as well as the features and practices of hybrid courses most likely to produce positive learning outcomes. It also specifies the obligations of faculty in designing and delivering best-practice hybrid courses and the support and policy obligations of institutions. Challenging prima-facie assumptions about hybrid learning, the author promotes it as nothing less than an opportunity to reenvision education for the 21st century.